Scot J Paltrow

Times staff writer Scot J. Paltrow has won a George Polk award for excellence in journalism for a series of articles last June detailing how Prudential Insurance Co. of America and its Prudential Securities subsidiary marketed billions of dollars' worth of risky limited partnerships to small investors, falsely portraying the investments as safe for retirees.

Times staff writer Scot J. Paltrow has won a George Polk award for excellence in journalism for a series of articles last June detailing how Prudential Insurance Co. of America and its Prudential Securities subsidiary marketed billions of dollars' worth of risky limited partnerships to small investors, falsely portraying the investments as safe for retirees.

I am writing in response to two seemingly unrelated articles in the Nov. 22 paper. One is by Larry Gordon about Prof. Michael Moffatt's study on student cheating and the other is by Scot J. Paltrow about Michael Milken's 10-year prison term. According to Moffatt's survey, about 45% of students cheat occasionally. The worst offenders were economic majors. I quote Moffatt: "With all the inducements for cheating in undergraduate education, my question now has become: Why doesn't everyone cheat rather than resist temptation?"

Los Angeles Times staff writer Scot J. Paltrow was named a winner of the 27th annual John Hancock Awards for Excellence in Business and Financial Journalism. This is the second consecutive year Paltrow has won the award and the ninth such award for The Times. Paltrow won in the category for newspapers with circulation of more than 300,000 for his investigative series on the sale of limited partnerships by Prudential Securities Inc.

Times staff writers Scot J. Paltrow and Kathryn Harris on Monday were named winners of the 1994 Gerald Loeb Awards for business and financial journalism. Paltrow was cited for an investigative series on Prudential Securities Inc. and Harris for her coverage of the Paramount Communications Inc. takeover battle. The awards, established in 1957 by the late Gerald Loeb and administered by UCLA's John E.

Tough sanctions imposed by the Securities and Exchange Commission last week indicate a welcome new emphasis on consumer protection. The SEC previously concentrated too much of its resources on insider trading and other fraudulent practices.

A sorry pattern of lax oversight and inadequate disciplinary action against unscrupulous stockbrokers has cost many an individual investor. Too many. Now the Securities and Exchange Commission has wisely called for tougher regulations to weed out the rogue stockbrokers who habitually defraud customers in different ways to pad their own pockets. SEC Chairman Arthur Levitt Jr.

From the moment of its passage, civil libertarians and legal scholars have warned that the federal government's Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act--the so-called RICO statute--is an open invitation to prosecutorial abuse. Now, as a recent story by Times Staff Writer Scot J. Paltrow reported, many of those scholars, some of them former prosecutors, believe their anxieties have been realized.

Building a nest egg takes discipline and prudence and carries a certain amount of risk. In these days of low interest rates, many savers are taking their money out of low-bearing bank accounts or certificates of deposit and plunking it into the stock market in hopes of earning better returns. But beware, small investors: The vagaries of the market may not be the only risk. Although the vast majority of brokers is honest and dedicated to the interest of clients, a small number are unethical.